


One Foot In Front Of The Other

by lazulisong



Series: Feelings Are Boring [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-30
Updated: 2010-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/pseuds/lazulisong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winona is called to fix the cock-up of the <em>Yorktown's</em> engines. She uses one of the science-bitches to help her do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Foot In Front Of The Other

Win gets an emergency weeping comm from Chris Pike two days after Jim turns eighteen and they're both nearly over the hangover. (If Jim is old enough to be tried as an adult, he's old enough to drink as one, she reasons, which was part of the reason why she had only agreed to have kids after George had solemnly sworn to be there to raise them. Asshole.) Pike's not actually weeping, to be fair, but he's definitely got the crazed expression of a command-bitch over his head, and he says things like 'complete cock-up of the engines', 'pay you double', and 'my fucking ship's fucking warp drive!' so Win decides that she'd better save him from the court martial. She likes Pike, even beside the fact that he had been the tender firstie given to George to lovingly raise, and she's always liked the Yorkie. Girl doesn't deserve an asshole ruining her engines.

When she arrives on the _Yorktown_'s transporter pad, she's met by Pike and some sort of ridiculously tall and hot Vulcan in Science blues, maybe a couple years older than Jim, plus the Chief Engineering Asshole. He looks like Pike read him the riot act and it still burns. The first thing she says is, "Get that creature out of here, he offends me."

For a moment the Vulcan looks like he's going to move, which, no, until Pike saves him by saying, "Robinson, you heard her, you're dismissed." The Chief Engineering Asshole slinks away and Pike gives the Vulcan a look that makes him stay and wait.

"Where the hell is One?" says Win. "I told her to keep you out of trouble, for fuck's sake!"

"Personal family leave," says Pike, scowling. "Look, Winona, this is --"

"I read the fucking report," says Win, making for the exit, "and you are quite right, it is a major fucking balls-up and you should have spaced the bastard, but you command-bitches never have a lick of sense. Who is this?" she adds, jerking her head at the Vulcan keeping pace with them.

"The science officer who realized there was a problem," says Pike. "His name is --"

"I shall call him Tiny Science-bitch," decides Win. "Since he was intelligent enough to alert you, I will allow him to help me fix the problem."

"Win, for God's sake --"

Win points at Pike. "Silence, Command-bitch!"

Pike rolls his eyes, but she has a baby album of pictures from his first year at Academy, so she allows him his rebellion.

"Tiny Science-bitch," she says, looking up at the Vulcan, who is listening to everything attentively, "you must never allow the command-bitches to forget they are here to serve us. Especially us in Engineering, but you Science-bitches as well. Sometimes you must allow them the illusion of control, but never forget where power truly lies. I have spoken!"

Pike makes a strangled noise, and Win deigns to grant him an annoyed look. "My own command-bitch," she says, to the Vulcan and at Pike, "understood this very well." Pike snorts unattractively, because he knows as well as she does that George was the first of only three people in the galaxy she would do anything for. "In fact," she says, turning her nose up at Pike, who clearly has been without a competent overlord for much too long, "he left me a manual detailing the proper training of a command-bitch."

Pike turns a sort of cheesy-greenish-white. Win regards him benevolently.

"If you are a good tiny science-bitch," she says to the Vulcan, "and you work very hard and are useful to me, perhaps I shall teach you to manage the command-bitch you may have of your very own, someday."

The Vulcan inclines his head gravely. Win can see, buried beneath layers and layers of control and repression and logic, the tiniest, faintest glimmer of something like a sense of humor. "I am here to serve, Commander," he says.

"Tiny Science-bitch, refer to me as Overlord," says Win.

"Yes, Overlord."

"Oh, for the love of fuck," says Pike. "Win, you can't make him call you 'overlord', and you cannot go around calling him Tiny Science-bitch. What someone tells his fa--"

The Vulcan says, "I have no objection to whatever Overlord chooses to call me, sir," even as Win says,

"When the tiny science-bitch has earned the privilege of a name, I will give him one."

Pike clutches his hair and groans. "I'm afraid to ask if you're like this at home," he says.

"The Spawn always respond to their names," says Win.

"Which are?" says Pike, with the look that means he doesn't really want to know. Win never understands why command-bitches do that to themselves. "George-clone and Mini-me," she says.

Pike lets out a long, long sigh and looks at the Vulcan. "You don't actually have to work with her, Lieutenant," he says. "She can be -- challenging at times."

"I feel the amount that I will learn from the commander will be worth any amount of personal inconvenience, sir," says Tiny Science-bitch loyally.

Pike clutches his forelock of blond hair fretfully. "That's what I'm afraid of."

\--

Tiny Science-bitch soon learns to be helpful, and Win is able to work on most of the repairs with him as her only assistant. This pleases Win, because she has less people to correct for their stupidity, and pleases Tiny Science-bitch, who is learning a lot about warp cores and crazy humans.

It does not please Pike, who thinks she's ruining Tiny Science-bitch for normal humans forever, nor does it please the idiot alleged to be in charge of Engineering. As far as Win can tell, this is partly because Cockbrains is upset that Win is fixing all of his frankly terrifying errors, and partly because Cockbrains has some obscure hate for Tiny Science-bitch. Whatever, Cockbrains is going to be Lesser Cowering Flunky 5 on a garbage scow when Win sends her report in to Starfleet Engineering. She might let Tiny Science-bitch contribute a few adjectives, in recognition of the fact that he was the first person to realize what a balls-up Cockbrains was making of the warp core. That sort of thing should be encouraged.

"Commander," says Tiny Science-bitch. She's allowed him to use her actual title because Boyce is a fucking killjoy and he thinks that Pike needs to be able swallow something besides whiskey and his own bitter tears. "If I might be permitted a question?"

Win, under a machine, grunts. Some asshole nearly beat the curiosity out of Tiny Science-bitch -- well, he's plenty curious about warp cores and nebulae and shit, but his interpersonal curiosity is like, totally more repressed than even Vulcan average -- and she feels like she ought to allow him to bloom.

"Why do you not serve on a vessel of your own? You could easily be the Chief Engineering Officer on a ship of Yorktown's class."

Win rolls out from under the machinery and pushes the goggles away from her face. She call tell Tiny Science-bitch really wants to know, and she considers the question carefully. "For a while I was waiting for my command-bitch to get his stripes," she says finally. "We were going to serve together as Captain and CEO. Then when he died I had George-clone and Mini-me to think about -- and I got so I liked the short term things. The work is always interesting, you get to meet people and see things, and I can be on Terra if the Spawn need me."

"Logical," says Tiny Science-bitch.

Win is quiet for a moment, staring up at the pipes and rafters of the bay. The scar that George left still aches, even now. She's moved on. George hadn't driven a starship to his own death so she could spend her life weeping, sad and lorn. It's just ... she misses the motherfucker, is all. She loves the Spawn, and she's pretty sure they love her, and she has her work and her travel -- but George gave her something she's never found again.

She blows out a breath. "Never get fond of a command-bitch, Tiny," she says. "They always gotta be heroes."

Tiny Science-bitch inclines his head. "I will be mindful of your teaching," he says.

\--

... as it turns out, he's not mindful of it at all, but what can you do? Science-bitches, always wanting to know.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] One Foot In Front Of The Other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4131228) by [Dr_Fumbles_McStupid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid/pseuds/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid)




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